


Anatomy of a Nightmare

by thisjustout



Category: Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Genre: Character Analysis, Gen, Internalized Homophobia, Meta, Nonfiction, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-30
Updated: 2019-07-30
Packaged: 2020-07-25 23:29:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20034118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisjustout/pseuds/thisjustout
Summary: Why does Homura betray Madoka? A look into the psychological storytelling ofThe Rebellion Story.





	1. Rainbow Love

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted between [April and June of 2018](https://psytog.tumblr.com/tagged/anatomy%20of%20a%20nightmare/chrono) on Tumblr.

“Um, what the fuck?” was my first thought upon finishing _Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie: Rebellion._

As I gather, this is a common reaction. The film’s music and visuals are gorgeous, but its story feels disjointed. In particular, the twist ending seems to spit in the face of Homura’s character development up until that point; her undying devotion to Madoka is swept away in the blink of an eye.

After many a rewatch, however, I no longer believe that the ending is out of character. Homura’s motivations are complex, but they are not inconsistent. A close reading of the film has given me a deeper appreciation of its story, including and especially the ending.

With this series of posts, I want to dig deep into Homura’s psyche, deep enough to explain her behavior during the final act. Whether or not you ultimately agree with me, I hope I at least shed some new light on the film for you.

Today’s topic only skims the surface of Homura’s character, but it is the backbone upon which all her other motivations rest. I want to openly acknowledge and discuss something about which the film maintains, however small, a degree of plausible deniability.

I want to talk about Homura’s attraction to Madoka.

[A pair of TV Tropes commenters](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Ftvtropes.org%2Fpmwiki%2Fpmwiki.php%2FFridge%2FPuellaMagiMadokaMagicaTheMovieRebellion&t=MWIzODNkNDY4MzI4NWNjZDgxNTZlMjVkNmFlYzgyNzUxYzdjZWNiZix6SXNaT0w2Qg%3D%3D&b=t%3AbjBpZ3tb-REruRSN2Dt4Ag&p=https%3A%2F%2Fpsytog.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F186120905617%2Fanatomy-of-a-nightmare-rainbow-love&m=0) suggest that rainbows, as featured in the above two images, may be symbols of Homura’s “more than platonic” love for her friend:

> Homulilly the witch has a giant rainbow in her barrier. Homura’s transformation into a witch was mainly was due to her love for Madoka, which may be more than platonic. What symbol is used to represent romantic love between people who aren’t heterosexual? A rainbow.

> The same rainbow appeared before it revealed itself in Homulilly’s barrier too. Where? At the end of Madoka’s transformation sequence.

I would take it one step further.

#### The Forbidden Fruit

When I first returned to _Rebellion_ after a few years away from the _Madoka_ franchise, one scene caught my attention: Sayaka confronts Homura after the gun brawl, and the two of them are framed, respectively, in blue and red light. Blue makes sense for Sayaka, but why red for Homura and not her signature purple? On subsequent viewings, I realized that Homura is linked to the color red not just in that particular scene but throughout the whole film.

Red generally seems to symbolize chaos, passion, and emotional instability. [The scene immediately following Sayaka’s confrontation](https://psytog.tumblr.com/post/186426862192/gaytog-5e-red) really draws out the “passion” part, indicating through subtle visual cues that Homura is not just romantically in love with Madoka, but also sexually attracted to her.

To begin with…

  


As Homura sails through this tunnel, its coloring shifts from red to rainbow, signifying the presence of, as the TV Tropes commenters put it, non-heterosexual love. She then kneels in worship before a statue of Ultimate Madoka, blushing heavily, while the Clara Dolls chew on pomegranates. The dolls are widely understood to offer insight into Homura’s own mind; here, I believe, she is fantasizing about performing oral sex.

  


Red fruit is established as a symbol of sin in “Can You Face Your True Feelings?” when Kyoko brings Sayaka to a dilapidated church, offers her an apple, and tempts her to a life of hedonism, mimicking the Biblical story of Eve and the serpent.

If the symbolism holds for these pomegranates as well, and I believe it does, then Homura’s fantasy is colored by internalized homophobia; she believes that her attraction to Madoka is sinful. This could explain, although only partially, the controversial twist ending. After ripping Madoka from the Law of Cycles, Homura tells Kyube that she has come to acknowledge and embrace her feelings of love. If these feelings are sinful, then embracing them necessarily makes her evil; at that point, why not just go all the way and declare herself the Devil?

#### Smash the World’s Shell

Before _Rebellion_ was released, [fans speculated](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwiki.puella-magi.net%2FSpeculah%3ARebellion&t=YmFjZGQ5YWY2ZmZmNjQzN2Y0M2JlY2NhNjIzMmFiYTk4NWI1YWYxOSx6SXNaT0w2Qg%3D%3D&b=t%3AbjBpZ3tb-REruRSN2Dt4Ag&p=https%3A%2F%2Fpsytog.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F186120905617%2Fanatomy-of-a-nightmare-rainbow-love&m=0) that it might involve a pregnancy of some sort:

> The very last part of the new ending animation for the first movie features an unknown pink silhouette - most likely that of Ultimate Madoka - with another silhouette that is somewhat smaller and floating inside its belly, or womb (?) The smaller silhouette appears to be regular Madoka in a fetal position.
> 
> This has fueled speculation of a pregnancy. In Goethe’s Faust, Gretchen was actually pregnant with Faust’s baby and she was forced to murder her baby

…because apparently nothing in _Madoka_ is off the table. As silly as this sounds in retrospect, though, the ending does feature a birth of sorts.

Bear with me for a second and suppose that the tunnel featured above is not the only yonic (i.e., reminiscent of a vagina or uterus) symbol in the film. In fact, one of _Rebellion’s_ most prominent visual motifs is arches—windows, doors, bridges, rainbows(!), and tunnels alike—all of which can symbolize reproductive organs when they need to.

We can add eggs onto that list as well, since Kyube likens Homura’s labyrinth to an egg and it assumes an arched shape (a rainbow!) during the final battle. This one is hardly a stretch; the egg and the womb are both sites of birth.

Once the egg’s shell has been sufficiently cracked, Homura and Madoka join hands under a shower of flower petals. This imagery is evocative of a wedding; it is one more piece of evidence that, yes, these two girls are In Lesbians. Not to mention, just one scene later, Madoka utters the fundamental promise of a marriage: “We’ll always be together from now on.”

First comes love, then comes marriage, and then… if eggs are wombs, their first act as a symbolically married couple, shattering the “egg” that is Homura’s labyrinth, is akin to is making a baby.

This probably seems like a stretch, but it actually offers insight into the scene immediately following. Madoka’s severance from the Law of Cycles coincides with the shattering both of a screen/window and of Homura’s soul gem/egg. If we accept that windows and eggs are both yonic symbols, then this is doubly evocative of a birth, and the otherwise inexplicable “Madoka pregnant with herself” imagery suddenly makes sense: Ultimate Madoka is both God the Father and the Virgin Mary, while the normal, pink-eyed Madoka who returns to live among mortals is the Christ child.

What does the “get married, make a baby” imagery mean on a character level? Perhaps “Yes, they are in love,” and nothing else. Personally, I read it as further evidence of Homura’s sexual attraction to Madoka and confirmation of Madoka’s reciprocal feelings.

Finally, this is tentative, but we could bring it back to internalized homophobia. The shattering of the egg is also the shattering of the rainbow, symbol of queerness; one or both of these girls may be attempting to mold her desires into something that better fits heteronormative convention.

#### The Dreamer’s Double

On one level, _Rebellion_ is a dream that takes place within Homura’s mind. She is, after all, lying on her back the whole time, eyes closed, while her conscious mind traverses a fake, physics-defying landscape constructed by her own subconscious.

If the whole movie is a dream, then one character, unremarkable at first pass, suddenly stands out.

Hitomi’s despair is powerful enough to create a Nightmare; Homura’s despair transforms her dreamscape into a nightmarescape. Since Hitomi is driven by romantic frustrations, we can, following the parallel, deduce for the third time this evening that Homura is struggling with romantic problems of her own.

If we extrapolate further, the specific frustrations become apparent. Unlike Homura, Hitomi has entered into a relationship with her crush. Unfortunately, Kyosuke can never seem to spare her any time, nor does he appear to fully reciprocate her feelings: she tiptoes around actually saying “I love you” but does put the words “love” and “you” suspiciously close together, and his response is basically, “Haha, okay. See you tomorrow?”

I draw two conclusions from this, both of which deepen my understanding of the film’s twist ending. One, Homura resents Madoka for becoming the Law of Cycles. This resentment, while understandable, is entirely selfish. Madoka has devoted herself to _every single magical girl in reality;_ to take the words right from Hitomi’s mouth, “Would it kill [her] to use some of that effort for _me_ once in a while?”

Two, Homura is afraid that, were she to ever confess her love, Madoka would not reciprocate. We the audience have the benefit of looking at the subtext and saying, “Oh, of course Madoka reciprocates,” but no one is ever upfront about their romantic intentions in this show. As far as Homura knows, the afterlife awaiting her is an eternity of awkwardness with a straight girl who likes her…but not like _that_.

In the series proper, Homura relives the same month over and over again, never able to move beyond Walpurgisnacht’s reckoning. Freed from her Sisyphean task, she now finds herself still unable to move into the future for fear of what it might bring, paralyzed no longer by circumstance but by her own insecurities.

What left is there to do but reboot the world one more time?


	2. A Heart Divided

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This section talks candidly about suicide in ways that would be considered overly simplistic if applied to a real person, and which may be unhelpful for people currently dealing with suicidal thoughts to hear.

When Homura’s gun-slinging brawl with Mami comes to a stalemate, she devises a curious plan. It starts with pointing a gun directly at her own skull.

At first her face is impassive—she seems to know that a bullet to the brain will not in fact kill her—but she has to muster some resolve before actually pulling the trigger.

Later, she attempts to physically separate herself from her soul gem, an act that normally turns magical girls into lifeless corpses. When that fails, she shoots the gem—multiple times. Again, there is a degree of ambiguity about her intent; she correctly suspects that the normal rules governing magical girls have ceased to apply to her, and that she will be fine.

Then she calls a curse upon her soul, accelerating her transformation into the witch Homulilly and fully expecting the others to kill her as a result. Taken in a vacuum, this seems like a noble sacrifice made for Madoka’s sake. Combined with everything else, though, it stands out as the culmination of long-boiling self-destructive tendencies.

That is to say, Homura is suicidal.

#### Beauty Is in the Eye of the Conqueror

Before exploring the motivations for Homura’s suicide attempts, some background needs to be established. I promise to tie everything together soon enough. 

As Kyoko and Homura explore the edge of the labyrinth, we see the words “Veni Vidi Mitakihara,” a spin on Julius Caesar’s “I came, I saw, I conquered.” The reason for this quote’s inclusion in the film is made clear when we consider the Incubators. Kyube does quite a lot of _seeing_, as frequent close-ups on his eyes remind us. Eventually, he admits that he only wants to confirm Madoka’s existence so he can control her. Seeing is the first step to conquering.

So too with Homura. When the Law of Cycles comes for her soul, we view the world through her eyes as she opens them. She sees Madoka. Then she conquers her.

#### At War

The nature of Homura’s despair, the root of her suicidal behavior, is an internal contradiction, a war waged between the self_less_ and the self_ish_ aspects of her own personality. On the one hand she wants to do right by Madoka; on the other, to possess and control her.

This duality is present as early as the contract she makes with Kyube. Ostensibly, she makes her wish to protect Madoka; yet she also wants to switch places with her, to be cool and in control while Madoka is naive and helpless.

Homura forsakes whoever would waste Madoka’s wish by creating this false Mitakihara City, calling such behavior a “weakness” that is “unforgivable”—yet she herself is to blame.

To put it another way: Homura is of two minds, and one of those minds is trying to kill the other.

In _Madoka_, the head is synonymous with the heart; a soul is just a cluster of neurons. Given that Homura is at war with her own soul, it makes sense then for the suicidal imagery to coalesce around her head. Homulilly marches solemnly toward a guillotine, begging for death. In addition, Homura actually does shoot her own head, as well as her own soul gem, over the course of the film. Even physically separating herself from the gem, severing mind from body, is a kind of symbolic decapitation.

Consider as well the scene when Madoka reaches out to Homura at the climax of the rainbow battle. Homura points her gun at a likeness of “Moemura” (i.e., herself but with braids and glasses), aiming directly at the head. She seeks to extinguish Moemura, but she _is_ Moemura; any attempts to kill a part of her soul are necessarily attempts to kill the whole thing.

Here is what she says to Madoka immediately afterward:

> I’m sorry… I’m so spineless… I wanted to see you one more time. And if I had to go so far as to betray that wish… Yes, I knew I could shoulder any sin. No matter what I became, I knew I’d be fine with it, as long as I could have you by my side.

What Moemura represents, what Homura seeks to purge from her own psyche, is a particular kind of weakness: desire. She hates herself not just for trapping Madoka within the labyrinth, but for even wanting to spend time with her in the first place. She cocks her gun not only at Moemura’s head, but also her massive, stylized _eye;_ as explored above, to see is to covet, and thus inevitably to conquer. In Homura’s mind, her attraction to Madoka will inevitably lead her to selfish, immoral acts.

This is why I believe Homura is dealing with a whole heaping dose of internalized homophobia. She thinks she deserves to die simply for _wanting to be with Madoka._ I cannot construct any possible explanation for this except the kind of self-hatred that results from growing up queer in a heteronormative society.

#### A Synthesis of Sorts

When Madoka tells Homura that she could “never” go somewhere so far away that she would lose all her friends, a spotlight shines over Homura’s head. The imagery is reminiscent of a light bulb going off; she is having an idea.

This is where the first seeds of the twist ending are planted. Here, Homura tells herself that she should never have let Madoka make the sacrifice that she did. By the time the Law of Cycles comes for Homura’s soul, this idea has sprouted into a plan: become the Devil, remake the world, and finally “rescue” Madoka from her own wish.

As a friend pointed out to me, though, Homura is suffering from a severe case of wishful thinking. She does not frame the situation honestly. Without context, of course Madoka would say that she could never leave her friends and family behind. Thus Homura hears only what she wants to hear.

Still, as far as Homura is concerned, the biggest problem is over. Madoka wants the exact same thing that she wants! Her selfish desires are selfish no longer! She can have her cake and eat it, too! Joyous day!

Of course, if the film’s final scene is anything to go by, Homura has not quite rid herself of the desire to die.

Perhaps she has some lingering doubts about whether Madoka actually wants to be saved. Perhaps not. More likely, I think there is another factor behind Homura’s suicidality, one which does not disappear but is exacerbated by the remaking of the world: a fear of the future. I touched on this during the last post, but let me elaborate.

Homura wants to be in control. Her quest to save Madoka within the series proper, while tragic, does give her a tremendous amount of power over the timeline, power that she is now unwilling to relinquish. Giving herself up to the Law of Cycles would require embracing the uncertainty of the future, and this is something she simply cannot do.

(In addition to her fear of romantic rejection, I imagine she has some practical concerns about the afterlife. What does the place look like? How is day-to-day life organized? Do “days” even exist? Will she still be _a person_, or will her soul be absorbed into some collective Essence Of Magical Girls?)

One way to escape the future is by turning back time, or by recreating the universe in the image of the past. Another is to simply put an end to one’s own existence. From the beginning, I believe, Homura’s suicide attempts, in addition to being the boiling-over of an internal conflict, have also been desperate, last-ditch efforts to halt the flow of time.

> Have you realized yet, I wonder,  
that the truth  
only exists in the past?
> 
> Hopes and the future  
are the vain stories  
told by people from a distant garden.

[–“Kimi No Gin No Niwa”](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DxgiNwzfNGcc&t=Yjc5MjY5ZGU0MWYyMTM2Njc2YWE4M2I5ZTJlZGQyNzU1ZmRlYzUyNSxBeE9MYWhDdg%3D%3D&b=t%3AbjBpZ3tb-REruRSN2Dt4Ag&p=https%3A%2F%2Fpsytog.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F186120822697%2Fanatomy-of-a-nightmare-a-heart-divided&m=0)


	3. Puppets

So far, this series has assumed that the labyrinth is a reflection of Homura’s mind; thus the surrealist imagery often reveals her hidden thoughts and desires. The motif of the rainbow tells us of her romantic feelings for Madoka, the Clara Dolls illuminate a specific sexual fantasy, and the guillotine speaks to her suicidality.

The other magical girls also play a role in the psychological makeup of this dream. Starting with Kyouko and working her way through Madoka, Homura uses each character in turn to grapple with some hidden truth or repressed desire.

To be clear, the other girls are not dreamed-up phantasms. They exist independent of Homura’s mind. However, while trapped within the labyrinth, they take on the appearance of playthings: puppets onto which Homura projects her own insecurities as she inches closer to the truth.

(Note: The order of encounters is Kyouko, Bebe, Mami, Sayaka, then Madoka. This post is slightly out-of-order for reasons that will hopefully soon be clear. Also, Madoka is skipped because Homura’s encounter with her, the conversation in the field of flowers, was covered in the last post.)

#### Mami vs. Homura Is More than Just Eye Candy

“What do you want with us?” Homura demands of Bebe, choking her nearly to death. “Exactly what is so enjoyable about toying with us this way?…Out with it! What are you trying to achieve using such a roundabout scheme?”

To reveal the hidden meaning of this scene, I defer to Kyube, who more than halfway into the film states, “Considering that it was you, I did think that you would find the answer eventually, Homura Akemi.” This suggests that Homura’s memories have been repressed, but not completely erased. Should she choose to look for it, the truth is inside her.

Although Homura thinks she is interrogating Bebe in this scene (and she is, on a conscious level), Bebe is ultimately just a proxy through which Homura subconsciously interrogates herself. The act of projecting her flaws onto another person is a way to tiptoe around the issue, to wrestle with the reality of her own witchhood without actively acknowledging it.

Homura’s desire to kill the girl is likewise an unrealized suicidal impulse, born of a desire to murder whatever part of herself could be so weak and so selfish as to construct this labyrinth. In a sense, she looking into a mirror and attempting to strangle her own reflection.

So too with Mami.

Right before their epic gun battle, Homura recalls, “Mami Tomoe—I was never comfortable with her. She would always put on a strong front and push herself too hard despite having the softest heart of any of us.” Does this not accurately describe Homura herself, though? How many times, in both the series and the film, does her tough-girl mask break down to the point of tears?

In the senior magical girl Homura sees her own vulnerability reflected back at her; she sees fear and pain hidden behind a fragile facade of strength; _she sees Moemura._ Thus, while on a conscious level she fights Mami so that she can get to Bebe, on a subconscious level she is once again wrestling with a piece of herself that she despises.

It is her suicidal desire to purge Moemura from her psyche that ultimately compels her to duel. It comes as no surprise, then, when at the end of this fight Homura turns a gun on herself.

#### You’ve Changed

When Homura begins to notice that something is off about the world she inhabits, she confronts Kyouko. Why Kyouko? Because, she explains, “You’re the one that feels oddest to me. Compared to the impression of you I have inside me, the person you are now just seems completely different.”

Of course, Homura herself has changed more than anyone in the quintet. Acknowledging these changes would be scary, though—it would bring her one step closer to discovering the full truth of the labyrinth and of her own witchhood—so she deflects the issue by focusing instead on the runner-up in the “not quite how I remember you” department.

Just as she later does to Bebe and Mami, Homura is projecting repressed knowledge onto another character here. In this case, Kyouko does not embody anything about Homura’s actions (as Bebe does) or personality (as Mami does), just the mere _fact_ that she has changed.

Unlike her later encounters, this one actually turns out okay. By the end of their bus ride, Homura has embraced her old self. The badass, timeline-hopping, lone wolf of a girl we all know and love has returned.

#### The Foil

When the time comes for Homura and Sayaka to clash, projection goes out the window. Homura is caught off guard and remains on the defensive throughout their entire conversation. Despite this, the encounter is still an important step in the process of uncovering her memories.

Sayaka’s role here is twofold. First, she urges Homura not to jump to conclusions, saying, “If you’d just stopped to think about it, you would’ve realized…this labyrinth isn’t a trap to lure in victims. What the witch controlling this labyrinth wants is to maintain the status quo in here.” In appealing to Homura’s sense of logic, she nudges her closer to the truth—a truth Homura is desperate to avoid—without pushing her all the way.

Second, she suggests that Homura reconsider her policy of All Witches Must Die. Homura is horrified by the suggestion that a witch could be met with anything but death; the irony, of which Sayaka is well aware, is that the witch Homura seeks to vanquish is Homura herself.

Because the labyrinth is an extension of Homura’s head, the question “Would you really be okay destroying this Mitakihara City?” is a coded way of asking “Are you really going to commit suicide?” Whether Sayaka actually realizes that Homura is suicidal is unclear to me, but the point stands: if she cannot reconcile her feelings, she will ultimately die by her own hand.

Sayaka and Homura are opposites, foils, which gives heightened meaning to this scene. They are framed in blue and red light: logic versus emotion, order versus chaos, justice versus sin.

Earlier in the film, Sayaka suggests that maybe she has “gained some life experience” after she makes a flippant joke about Kyosuke. How right she is! Kyosuke was the focal point of Sayaka’s spiral into despair; moving past him speaks to tremendous strides in her ability to emotionally self-regulate.

Sayaka is also the only magical girl of the original five whose memories remain intact, signifying that unlike Homura, she has not simply _repressed_ the darker parts of her psyche, but has confronted the darkness head-on, owning up to it and becoming all the stronger as a result. Her mastery of Octavia, her witch form, is symbolic of this.

Sayaka is a shining beacon of positive character growth. She represents everything that Homura _could_ be, if only she let go of her stubborn self-reliance. She has high hopes for Homura, which makes the final act all the more tragic.


	4. Corrections, Clarifications, Conclusion

Today, in this final installment of the Anatomy of a Nightmare series, I want to revisit some underdeveloped ideas. After this, I plan to put _Madoka_ on the shelf for a while; when I return, it will hopefully be to pick up some of these dangling threads.

Few of today’s topics relate directly to Homura’s betrayal, but they do chip away at a more fundamental question: Does_ Rebellion_ form a coherent narrative? Can we enjoy the film for what it is, or will we be forever stuck scratching our heads?

#### Windows

Returning to TV Tropes, [one commenter notes](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Ftvtropes.org%2Fpmwiki%2Fpmwiki.php%2FFridge%2FPuellaMagiMadokaMagicaTheMovieRebellion&t=NzQwNDc1OGEzNDRiNjJjZmE0ZGU1NjgwYWY4MjgyMGQ1YzRlODdiOSxCSXlzT0s1UA%3D%3D&b=t%3A73x_jiCwYez7GcD-WFbNkg&p=http%3A%2F%2Fgaytog.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F172675732805%2Fanatomy-of-a-nightmare-rebellion-is-rife-with-the&m=0) that the Law of Cycles is symbolized by a window:

> At the beginning of the movie…[Homura’s] soul gem falls into a open window that symbolizes her potential future salvation by the Law of Cycles…demonstrated by an illustration that came bundled with the OST [above]. At the end we see the same window, closed this time. The window is the way to the Law of Cycles (Madoka), but Homura has kidnapped her and stolen her powers; the Law of Cycles is inaccessible now. 

The window motif shows up elsewhere, always linked to Madoka-as-savior. Windows are _also_ symbolically linked to eyes: after Homura parts with Kyouko, the screens displaying her memories are a mix of window-shaped and eye-shaped; in Madoka’s transformation sequence, once the window/screen shatters, the first thing we see is her eye; and when Madoka reaches out to Homura during the rainbow battle, the opening of an eye is juxtaposed with the opening of a window. 

Eye symbolism was explored in an earlier post: in essence, _to see_ leads inevitably _to conquer._ The connection between windows and eyes thus paints Madoka as an object of desire, someone to be coveted, then controlled. Windows also double as yonic symbols thanks to their arched shape, which gives a sexual edge to Homura’s desire.

#### Dreams

This entire film is basically a dream that takes place within Homura’s mind. Not only is Homura (as I mentioned in the first post) lying on her back with her eyes closed while a surreal fantasyscape runs through her brain, but the language of dreams is also present throughout: Kyouko and Homura both refer to the outside world as a “bad dream,” and Homura introduces the film by saying, “I dreamt that I encountered that familiar smile once again.” Additionally, this world’s harbingers of despair are neither witches nor wraiths, but _nightmares._

The fake lore surrounding these creatures hints at Homura’s ultimate struggle. Rather than pound their foes to dust, magical girls must instead corner them, then sit down to eat. This communion does not extinguish the nightmare, but instead transforms it into a sweet dream. Likewise, Homura must confront her inner demons and make peace with them, or else succumb to darkness.

#### Life & Death & Love & Birth

I brushed over the pregnancy symbolism in my first post without giving it the time or thought it deserved. I originally interpreted pregnancy as a signifier of sexual attraction (vis-à-vis “making babies”) but the imagery is too pointed to _just_ be about sex. The exact purpose of the symbolism still escapes me, but I have a few ideas to guide my thinking next time around. (This is also putting aside the Christian symbology, since it reveals little about the characters themselves.)

**Death vs. Birth:** My initial analysis failed to draw a connection between the shattering of the rainbow labyrinth orchestrated by Madoka—which I view as a symbolic birth—and the skull-smashing threaded throughout Homura’s suicide attempts. The labyrinth is an extension of Homura’s head, so destroying it would bear resemblance to suicide…except that it actually _gets in the way_ of Homura’s death wish.

Despite their likeness, then, the two actions stand diametrically opposed. While suicidal imagery involves an _external_ force imposed upon the head—a guillotine, a gunshot, etc.—the birth symbolism involves emergence, a force applied _from within._ The former destroys the contents of the receptacle (the mind, the soul), while the latter destroys only the receptacle itself, allowing the contents (a baby?) to break through.

Whether this revelation adds meaning to any other moments in the film remains to be seen.

**Babies:** With a liberal interpretation of what constitutes a phallic or yonic symbol, _Rebellion_‘s opening scene reads as a metaphor for insemination and birth: pointy and curvy architecture intermingle in the establishing shots, white magical goop runs through the streets, then a nightmare emerges through a tear in the labyrinth. The tear itself is already womb-like, but the nearby rainbow helps drive home the point. (Rainbows are arches and therefore potential yonic symbols.)

The soul gem functions literally as head and symbolically as womb, and it seems that the contents of these two receptacles, despair and babies, are also linked. Consider as well the resemblance of Bebe, who inexplicably remains a witch, to an infant: [yet another TV Tropes commenter](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Ftvtropes.org%2Fpmwiki%2Fpmwiki.php%2FFridge%2FPuellaMagiMadokaMagicaTheMovieRebellion&t=ZWE0NzQ2YWEwZDkzY2E5NDFiOGY2NGJlYzlmZTQ4MjFiOTkxMTQ3OSwwa1prWXU2TQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AbjBpZ3tb-REruRSN2Dt4Ag&p=https%3A%2F%2Fpsytog.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F186120711542%2Fanatomy-of-a-nightmare-corrections&m=0) points out that “Mami and Bebe” read as “Mommy and Baby.” Even in her human from, Nagisa is noticeably younger than the other girls.

Cornering the nightmare by forcing it through a series of arch-shaped doors is thus evocative of forcing a baby back into the womb, and therefore of forcing despair deeper into one’s psyche. The act might not symbolize making peace with one’s demons at all, but repressing them! Or it could be both: repression in the hunt, followed by healthy processing in the communion.

**Reshaping:** For an already-alive character to be “born” is necessarily for that character to be _re_born. Birth symbolism exists when a character tries to mold someone according to their own desires. Homura wants Madoka to forever remain naive and helpless; in ripping her friend from the Law of Cycles, she forcibly acts out this fantasy. Yet for Madoka to smash the shell of Homura’s labyrinth also evokes a birth, indicating that she likewise wants to reshape Homura.

Remember that the Law of Cycles is symbolized by a window. These girls are desperately trying to pull each other through that window–Madoka to lift Homura to Heaven, and Homura to drag Madoka to Earth. The struggle is weirdly evocative of pregnancy thanks to the window’s arched (and therefore uterine) shape; each girl is trying to force the other _to be reborn._

**Gender Fuckery:** While the pregnancy symbolism may, following the “birth = rebirth” idea, be a totally nonsexual game of tug-o’-war-through-the-yonic-symbol, I would be remiss to bring it up again without considering its possible sexual implications.

Most magical girls can summon vaguely phallic weapons (muskets, arrows, spears, swords), but Homura must carry actual real-life guns into battle. These acquired phalluses lend credence to the idea that Homura is not a magical girl, but a magical trans guy or transmasculine enby; alternatively, the _realness_ of the phallic weaponry might suggest trans girl-hood.

The evidence is weak, but I bring it up anyway because Homura being trans would give another angle to the pregnancy symbolism; that is, Homura might _literally_ want to impregnate Madoka. The fantasy could be dysphoria-relieving (if transmasculine) or an actual possibility (if transfeminine). Neither interpretation would contradict reading Homura as a queer person struggling with internalized homophobia, either, since trans people of all stripes can have different kinds of shame attached to romance.

Am I sure of this? No. Not in the slightest.

#### Recap

Understanding Homura’s betrayal is the reason I embarked on this journey in the first place. I got a little off-topic today, so to wrap things up, here is a quick recap of why I believe _Rebellion’s_ twist of an ending actually makes sense.

  * **Homura resents Madoka** for becoming the Law of Cycles. She feels abandoned, underappreciated, and unloved.
  * **Homura is afraid of the future.** She loves Madoka, but she does not know if Madoka loves her back. Unwilling to let time move forward for fear of the rejection it might bring, she refuses salvation and remakes the universe in the image of the past. Notably, she does not create a world where Madoka falls in love with her; she creates a world where the question forever remains unanswered, where time is essentially at a standstill.
  * **Homura wants to be in control** of both her own fate and Madoka’s. She has grown accustomed to the almost-absolute power granted by her time magic, and she now hesitates to relinquish it.
  * **Homura is struggling with internalized homophobia.** She has been raised to believe that her attraction towards other girls is immoral. Stealing Madoka from the Law of Cycles is therefore not an act of selfishness that comes out of nowhere, but rather is committed by someone who already believes herself evil.
  * **Homura has rationalized her actions** by telling herself that this is what Madoka wants. Throughout the film she struggles to reconcile her selfish and selfless impulses, her desire to do right by Madoka yet also to control her. Her only escape (besides, you know, open and honest communication—but who has time for that?) is for what Madoka wants to align perfectly with what Homura wants. She is wrong, of course, but never underestimate the power of wishful thinking.

#### The End


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